Lake Park near playoff bid

Finding the hash marks on East Aurora's football field proved elusive on Friday night. By halftime seeing the numbers on Lake Park's white road jerseys was increasingly tricky.

And finding a foothold on what might have been previously been a natural grass field but was now just puddled mud was difficult.

But you've got to find a way to play in any conditions, and though it took Lake Park more than a half to figure it out, the Lancers eventually got their footing and won the Upstate Eight Conference contest 28-0.

The win moves Lake Park (5-1, 4-0) to within one victory of automatic qualification for the IHSA playoffs. The Lancers last qualified for the postseason in 2006. Lake Park also keeps alive hopes of the UEC title, though the final third of the season brings games with South Elgin, Waubonsie Valley and Bartlett.

"It's been kind of a rough five years," Lake Park coach Andy Livington said. "It's kind of nice thinking we could be back in the playoffs. But we've got some real tough opponents coming up. We've got to play with those guys."

East Aurora (0-6, 0-4) came close to scoring only in the very late portion of the fourth quarter, when a touchdown run by Troy Ruffin was called back because of a penalty.

By then Lake Park had its 28 points. The only points of the first three quarters, however, came on a 33-yard punt return by Artie Monaco. With the score only 6-0 at halftime and with East Aurora moving the ball at times, the Lancers defense needed to make some adjustments to try to preserve the lead.

"At 6-0 anything can happen," Lake Park defensive coordinator David Mikes said. "We had some worry in us. We made a couple of adjustments with our front to close up the middle a little bit. I worked a little bit."

Lake Park allowed only 21 yards in the second half before Ruffin's long run, which still netted 58 yards. For the game the Lancers held the Tomcats to 97 rushing yards.

"They had us down a couple of times, but our defense responded well tonight," Mikes said. "They did a nice job."

Lake Park's offense, however, was having troubles of its own. The Lancers fumbled the ball 6 times in the game and lost two of those. At halftime, they only had 57 offensive yards, though that was better than East Aurora's 18.

The second half was a different story, in large part because Monaco found some openings. The senior finished with 111 yards. He also scored on runs of 14 and 33 yards.

"We wanted (Monaco) to have the ball as much as he can," Livingston said. "When he does, he's kind of a jitterbug, and that didn't help him to run."

Backup quarterback Jake McNamara ran in from 29 yards on a keeper late in the fourth quarter for the final score in the contest.